{"id":53995,"date":"2020-09-13T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=53995"},"modified":"2020-09-12T17:55:54","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T00:55:54","slug":"russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s limits on critical thinking are hitting its academic performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Recent months have seen heated debates in Russia about the limits of faculty and students\u2019 rights to undertake\u00a0public speaking and engage in political activism.<\/p>\n

Lecturers at the prestigious\u00a0Higher School of Economics<\/a>\u00a0(HSE), once considered Russia\u2019s most liberal university, have spent the summer worrying that their criticisms of the political status quo might put an end to their teaching careers.<\/p>\n

A master\u2019s programme was apparently shut down\u00a0when the\u00a0university\u2019s management\u00a0realised that Yegor Zhukov\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a prominent blogger and participant in the 2019 protests against fraudulent practices in the elections for the Moscow city parliament\u00a0\u2013 was among the newly admitted cohort. He was also badly\u00a0beaten<\/a> just hours after he posted a video on YouTube explaining that he had been enrolled and then, less than two hours later, was crossed off a list of students admitted.<\/p>\n

It has proved contentious for scholars to speak out in public and for students to engage in political activity at least since the 2019 protests.\u00a0Zhukov was an undergraduate at the HSE when he was\u00a0arrested<\/a>\u00a0following an unsanctioned opposition rally that summer. This led many fellow students, staff and alumni to express solidarity. However, though the management initially supported calls for Zhukov\u2019s release, it later shifted to a policy seemingly designed to avoid future clashes with the state authorities.<\/p>\n

In 2020, the university introduced new\u00a0internal regulations<\/a>\u00a0requiring staff and students to refrain from using their university affiliations in public statements that could trigger \u201cnegative social reactions and\/or have negative reputational consequences for the university\u201d. Though these regulations are careful to emphasise that there are no restrictions on academics speaking out about their \u201cresearch results\u201d and matters of \u201cprofessional competence\u201d, keeping within the guidelines is likely to be difficult, particularly for those researching current social or political developments in Russia.\u00a0This attempt to establish a boundary between \u201clegitimate\u201d academic research and \u201cunacceptable\u201d participation in public debate amounts to another way of silencing critically minded scholars.<\/p>\n

After the journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva was\u00a0found guilty<\/a>\u00a0in July of \u201cjustifying terrorism\u201d when she dared to ask about the connection between the repressive political regime in Russia and a suicide bomb outside the Federal Security Service office in Arkhangelsk, several HSE employees produced a paper citing values such as \u201cacademic ethics\u201d to delegitimise debate about terrorism and its causes. A few scholars\u00a0responded<\/a>\u00a0by pointing out that such a stance could close down research into social phenomena such as terrorism, state terror, revolution and liberation movements.<\/p>\n

The HSE has also decided not to extend the contracts of a number of academics for the coming academic year. Though the university\u2019s management has defended its decision on grounds of efficiency and necessary restructuring, those adversely affected argue that the dismissals were motivated by an urge to get rid of those who were most\u00a0outspoken<\/a>\u00a0and critical of the political system in Russia, including the abruptly amended\u00a0constitution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies\u00a0(BASEES)\u00a0published a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0this July in which the president shared his unease \u201cabout the integrity of the process by which decisions over continuing employment and terminations of contracts are taken\u201d and emphasised that these developments undermine the HSE\u2019s position as a close partner for scholars and universities in the UK. And Russia\u2019s\u00a0University Solidarity<\/a>\u00a0trade union\u00a0called for<\/a>\u00a0a protest (using a hashtag translating as \u201cyou can\u2019t shut us up\u201d) against measures to punish scholars and students for their outspokenness.<\/p>\n

Then, in late August, a group of scholars, including those whose contracts at HSE have not been renewed, issued a\u00a0manifesto<\/a>\u00a0announcing the establishment of\u00a0Russia\u2019s first Free University\u00a0and\u00a0stating\u00a0that one of their main goals is to free lecturers from excessive administrative pressures (among which they mean to include the pressure not to speak out).<\/p>\n

Among the group is Gasan Guseynov, whose social media post last year\u00a0criticising abuses of the Russian language by journalists and politicians\u00a0prompted<\/a>\u00a0HSE management to look into whether it \u201cviolated academic ethics in public speaking\u201d. This led to a committee\u2019s\u00a0recommending<\/a>\u00a0that Guseynov make a public apology for the \u201cdeliberate dissemination of ill-considered and irresponsible statements that have caused damage to the university\u2019s reputation\u201d.<\/p>\n

All of this took place against a background of Russian universities failing to achieve the\u00a0planned leap<\/a>\u00a0in international rankings; more and more insecure\u00a0employment contracts<\/a>;\u00a0and\u00a0legislation<\/a>\u00a0requiring that education in schools and universities should include not only knowledge and skills, but also spiritual and moral values.<\/p>\n

A recent\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0of the obstacles to scientific progress in Russia concludes that research managers do not prioritise the creation of the kind of new scientific knowledge likely to be recognised by the international academic community. This study was authored by people close to Alexei Kudrin, who represents the liberal-leaning wing within the ruling elite.<\/p>\n

What even this group fails to mention, however, is that the problem does not reside so much in management structures as in a political system\u00a0that crushes creativity and punishes critical thinking and activism.<\/p>\n

Author Bios:<\/strong> Katarzyna Kaczmarska is lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Edinburgh and\u00a0Dmitry Dubrovsky is an associate research fellow at\u00a0the\u00a0Centre for Independent Social Research\u00a0in Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent months have seen heated debates in Russia about the limits of faculty and students\u2019 rights to undertake\u00a0public speaking and engage in political activism. Lecturers at the prestigious\u00a0Higher School of Economics\u00a0(HSE), once considered Russia\u2019s most liberal university, have spent the summer worrying that their criticisms of the political status quo might put an end to […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":53996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[14035],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-53995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-critical-thinking"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRussia\u2019s limits on critical thinking are hitting its academic performance - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia\u2019s limits on critical thinking are hitting its academic performance - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recent months have seen heated debates in Russia about the limits of faculty and students\u2019 rights to undertake\u00a0public speaking and engage in political activism. Lecturers at the prestigious\u00a0Higher School of Economics\u00a0(HSE), once considered Russia\u2019s most liberal university, have spent the summer worrying that their criticisms of the political status quo might put an end to […]\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-09-13T15:00:40+00:00\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/critical-thinking.jpeg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"680\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"357\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kevin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\"},\"headline\":\"Russia\u2019s limits on critical thinking are hitting its academic performance\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-09-13T15:00:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":881,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/09\\\/critical-thinking.jpeg\",\"keywords\":[\"critical thinking\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Higher Education\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/russias-limits-on-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance\\\/\",\"name\":\"Russia\u2019s limits on critical thinking are hitting its academic performance - 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